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Genre Talk – Urban Fantasy vs. Paranormal Romance

My latest release, Moonlight, is written in alternating first person point of view. First person is generally frowned on in Paranormal Romance, but for my Moon Series, it was the only point of view that felt “right” for the feel of the series.

My agent pitched the series as “Urban fantasy pacing and voice, with the heat and happily ever after of paranormal romance.” which felt like a perfect description of my goal when I wrote the books. You see I LOVE urban fantasy. I really do. But, as a reader, I get really sick of the love triangles and the heroine never getting her man.

I love the complex urban fantasy plots, and the series arc of the nemesis, or maybe the redemption of a villain over the span of the series, but couldn’t we have happily ever afters along the way too? That’s what I set out to do when I wrote the Moon Series and it made it a challenging path for me to find an agent and a publisher. I found myself again in the position of genre blending.

Why can’t urban fantasy have a happily ever after? And why can’t paranormal romance employ a deep first person point of view with lots of action?

I’m having a blast writing these books because they really are the books I would like to read… 🙂 And I hope readers feel the same way.

What do you think? Do you like happily ever afters in your Urban Fantasy? What about first person point of view in your paranormal romance?

15 thoughts on “Genre Talk – Urban Fantasy vs. Paranormal Romance”

I want to read your books^^ i have at least part of them on my wishlist.
i do not mind an happy end in urban fantasy quite the opposite and i never thought about why paranormal romance couldn’t be written in the first person point of view…so a priori i wouldn’t mind it at all^^

Lisa! I love this series concept and I like your explanation too–I think that is the reason I tend to stay away from Urban Fantasy unless I get a really strong recommendation. After a while, an author torturing the character with love-life dilemmas feels like manipulation and melodrama. There are a few authors I loved who I stopped reading because of this. For me, making one’s love life work is itself part of heroism, albeit the everyday sort us mundane folks undertake. I kinda want my book heroes to be able to do it too 🙂

I’m a fan of genre blending. I lean more toward urban fantasy with a little romance than vice versa, but it seems like you’ve taken the best of both worlds. Looking forward to checking out your book. Good luck!

Great post, Lisa (and congrats on the new release!). I write both UF and PNR and, while the writing of them is different, they do share a lot of DNA (heh). I have some romance in my UF and a LOT of action in my PNR. My Penton series was originally UF with an HEA (about a 50-50 split) and I flat-out couldn’t sell it until I veered it to more of a 60-40 split one way or another, and I went with the PNR 60/UF 40 split. I think that’s entirely a publisher thing and not at all a reader thing, though. So I’m glad you were able to see your vision through!

Lisa, so great to meet you at RWA. I enjoyed the post. I love happy endings in all my entertainment and for me to tolerate an unhappy ending, it has to really serve the story. I don’t mind first person in my romance. I think there are pluses and minuses to it and as you said, whatever really fits the story is always the best choice. I’ve read urban fantasies where I’ve felt the first person didn’t serve the story and read romances where it does.

I just like an ending that fits the story. Often in UF, there’ll be this big plot climax (yay!) and the heroine will defeat the villain or whatever, and then the love interest character will just walk away. Kind of for no reason. Because hell, this is UF, and we can’t have a happy ending in UF, can we? Heaven forbid that the series might not go on for umpteen books.

I dunno. The love triangle, on-again-off-again thing just seems author-convenient sometimes. You can almost hear that author’s brain working: “If I give her a boyfriend, there’ll be no conflict in the next book!! Oh noes!!”

This is a great post, Lisa. I tend to read more UF than PNR, but I think (I hope) the lines are blending more and more. I’d love to get to the point where we can just write books, and they are what they are, but I understand from a marketing perspective, we have to help readers find the stories they’ll engage with. Congrats on releasing a “blended book.” I can’t wait to read it!

Great post, Lisa! Haven just released this month. I call it an urban fantasy *romance* because, like you, I like HEAs and HFNs. I’m glad you wrote the story you wanted to write, regardless of labeling, and I look forward to reading it. 🙂